I am sticking with reputable Internet dealers- they have high stock turnover so you can get the latest parts! My local hobby shop is 50 miles away and they can't even open on the days and at the times they say they will! Also never have the parts (owner's son is a pilot and crashes a lot- needs all of the trex parts!). Stock is minimal also...

I'd think getting kicked out of Hobby Clowns would be a good thing.

You have a Great Point there!

and one more thing "DON'T BE AFRAID!"

What a terrible thread. One incident turned into an all out attack against hobby shops. An obvious lack of understanding of what it's like on the other side of the fence. Any LHS that has anything to do with heli's is doing us a favor. Heli pilots represent the smallest number of customers and in turn the smallest amount of profit. Add to that the fact that there are hundreds of parts costing thousands and thousands of dollars to stock with little or no significant margins, all for people who get their kits from a mail order house and expect it set up and serviced for free. Loyalty and support are two way streets.

Well. Hobby Clowns here in Chas. Tend to hire morons! Then again hire a moron and pay them moron's pay ='s to minimum wage(no offence to those getting started in life) that can't afford or want to get into this or any other hobby. So way should they care if we are happy shopping there. If they ask "can I help you?" I reply with Thanks I got it(under my breath..You F'n moron!)

Welcome my son, Welcome to the machine

[quote]What a terrible thread. One incident turned into an all out attack against hobby shops. An obvious lack of understanding of what it's like on the other side of the fence.[quote]

Do you own a hobby shop?

Yes loyalty is a two way street. And, loyalty must be earned.
The Hobby Town in Strongsville Ohio is great. Friendly assistance, good prices and a decent inventory of plankers and E-flite helis.
There are not enough heli flyers around here for them to justify a huge inventory just for us. But, face it. Most hobby shops are terrible. It is a very difficult business. The fact of the matter is that if you treat your customers like they deserve to be treated and carry items that sell quickly, your hobby shop will do well.
If you treat your customers like they are morons and they are bothering you, then you deserve to go out of business.

I own a full scale aircraft shop. So, I do know what it is like on the other side of the fence. The competition is fierce. Most shops are charging less than lawn mower shops and the mark up on parts is only around 10%. That doesn't even cover costs of looking them up and ordering them. I treat my customers like gold. Even if I am having a REALLY bad day, the customer will not know it. I am still friendly and as helpful as I can be. I have watched several shops come and go over the past decade. most of them failed simply because their work was sub-standard and they weren't honest in their billing practices.
My shop rate is 30% higher than the other two shops on this airport.
And, I am the busiest shop here. Like a MinAir, You get what you pay for!
Doug

The hobby clowns out here in Ca is just as bad. They know absolutly NOTHING about any type of aircraft. They try to be helpul though, but at the same time will sell you a single conversion Rx with a dual conversion crystal. They have had the Trex450sa in stock for 3 months with NO repair parts. If you need a train though they are really good.

Really?? I Don't think so!
Thanks for your comments Tho!

and one more thing "DON'T BE AFRAID!"

I have to say, now that I think about it. THere is a really good LHS here in Orlando, FL, Graves RC, and holy crap do they have alot of stuff. They just expanded ther store with a huge construction add-on. There are seperate sections for what you need. Everyone seems reather nice, and there is an, after the shop closes, meet to fly right down the street from it. The only drawback is that it is 20 miles from my house. The other LHS is 1 mile from me and I would not go there if it was free. http://www.gravesrc.com

I have always found that if a LHS is willing to help and get parts in for me then I will support him. If they are rude or don't want to serve you or help then they can do without my business. The way you grow business is to give service to your customers, treating people like idiots or with bad manners hurts your business.
Having said all this you must be seen to want to do business with the LHS and not just use him when you cannot get it anywhere else or tell him you can get it cheaper on the internet. You have to pay for local service because of overheads.
If you have genuinely tried to do the right thing by your LHS and he does not respond then forget him. Remember all people have bad days....

Do you own a hobby shop?

I opened my first hobby shop in 95 and got out of the game in 98.
The highest % of overhead in my shop was heli stuff. The lowest profit margin was again helis. The least patient, most demanding, and hardest to please customers were heli pilots. I worked that store open to close 6 days a week and taught heli and airplane pilots every Sunday (free of course). There was a public building table, A computer with Colin Mills first sim on it, tools, and all the help I could offer. I built helis for free, I serviced helis for free, even helis I didn't sell. I even helped to start a heli club that still exists today. The only thing my shop didn't do was make money. The competition is fierce. There were times customers could buy things from Tower cheaper than I could wholesale them from Great Planes (both the same company). All this to have someone stand across the counter and tell me I am an idiot because I don't stock a certain part for a certain helicopter he just got from a mail order house. Good ridance to him and everyone like him.
Jontherooster, I don't think I missed the point at all. Your post caused an assault against a vital part of the r/c community, a victim with no voice here on rr. Someone needed to share the view from "the other side of the fence".
The cool techno toys we enjoy today are the benifits of sales caused by growth of the hobby. The growth comes from exposure. We owe credit in part for this exposure to the LHS.
If more people would walk into a hobby shop and buy something without beating the profit out of the place with "It's cheeper on the internet" there would be a great shop in every community with a happy owner inside because he's not starving to death.

~TEAM OCHC~ A strong man stands up for himself a STRONGER man will stand up for others.

I don't mind paying more for what I want in a local shop. The key is, the shop must have it.

Now, somehow these internet hobby shops are doing a seemingly good business. I can't imagine that they're paying for ads on this site and several others without some kind of profit being generated.

Therefore, these businesses have come across a business model that works, apparently. Why then can't the LHS compete in this field in the same way that these other businesses have learned? If I understand correctly, Readyheli, Heliproz, Modefo's and Rick's RC aren't actually big businesses, but small businesses much like local shops that learned to branch out and serve a larger market.

Oh, and also to give knockout service, while at the same time having very competitive pricing. What barrier exists to keep a local shop from competing in the same field?

I'm willing to admit, there might be such a barrier, as I've never run a business myself.

Trooper Sam

We do not do this to save money, we save money to do this-TheRickster

Wow!

Sorry to hear about the brutal treatment.
I have had great luck with the Hobbytown in south Austin, TX. They have parts for a few small E-helis, but they are always courteous to me and everyone in the store. In fact, I have seen the owner and some of the employees show a great deal of patience dealing with folks that are either inexperienced or just not real swift.
JEFF

Man, I feel irresponsible for not mentioning this. In Corona, there is a HobbyTown which stocks LOTS of T-Rex parts, both 450 and 600. The 450 parts are displayed nicely in a locked case so you can easily see and find your part, while protecting them from being shoplifted. The 600 parts need....well, they need some merchandising help. They're in a cardboard box I had to dig through to find what I needed.

But there were an AWFUL LOT of them. They're just challenged as to where to put them.

The people at this shop weren't very knowledgable about helis, at least when I was there. I'm willing to bet that their heli person may not have been there, though, as I think it unlikely that they could have been as well stocked as they were without somebody with experience having input.

Oh, and their prices were darned near internet prices. I told them so. It's a bit of a drive for me, but when I travel that direction, I stop in there now to try to get what I need before I go to the net.

Trooper Sam

We do not do this to save money, we save money to do this-TheRickster

electriciancarl,
just so you know the hobby shop in question does stock and sell the t-rex line. when you cant find something because they put all there helicopter parts together (as in on the same hooks) (E-Flite & T-reX) & you ask them for help they say well if you dont see it we dont have it. most times i'll go with parts #'s and all i want is for them to look in the inventory to see if they have a part before i spend 30 minutes digging. and they cant even do that.
now as for heli people having attitudes that may be so but they are also the guys who have the potential to spend the most. EXAMPLE- 2 guys walk in and spend $700 one on a car/ truck the other on a helicopter - both get all they need to complete and start playing. guy with the car may not com back unless he needs a glow plug. guy with helicopter will be back several times for more and more parts.

yes internet retailers kill the LHS. but why cant they do internet orders also? then the prices could be the same and they may make more profit because they have 2 inputs of income...

only you have the power to make no difference!

The only way to make any money in the hobby business is to have at least $1,000,000.00 in inventory and turn it 4 times a year while having low enough overhead to be able to maintain a decent profit margin.

I've known too many successful LHS' that did just that. It's a challenge. Ask Ron at Rick's how many gyros he has to buy to get a decent enough price to sell them for the price he asks. Why do you think that Tower is constantly sending out coupons for us to use as a discount? They have the margins to play with.

Most Hobby Clowns work on a forumula. They sell a certain amount of inventory with a certain mix and they are supposed to make X amount of profit with X amount of expenses. Service is sometimes secondary.

The real LHS' of the world are responsive. In our case I don't hammer the owner with the internet price, if I want to buy it I just do.